Irish author Conor O’Callaghan’s debut novel, the gothic mystery story Nothing On Earth, is one of the most gripping books of the year.

Poet Conor O’Callaghan’s debut novel Nothing on Earth is one of the most compelling books released this year.

On a swelteringly hot day in August, a twelve year old girl knocks on the door of a man’s house. He is a priest and the book’s narrator. The girl is strangely dressed with pen marks all over her arm. Her father, she says, has “gone too.” The girl has been living on a ghost estate with her parents and aunt. The mother and her sister have disappeared, and now her father has as well.

Nothing on Earth is a gothic novel, although the ghost estate and the unceasing summer heat are at odds with the general tropes of the genre.

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